THIS WEEKENDThe Dartmouth men’s hockey team will head out on the road this weekend for two games against North Country foes St. Lawrence and Clarkson Friday and Saturday nights. With just three weeks left in the regular season, every game is becoming more crucial for postseason seedings.

LAST TIME OUTThe Big Green fell to Harvard, 3-0, last Friday night in Cambridge in the only game of the weekend for the team. The Crimson scored once in the first period and twice in the third to earn the two ECAC Hockey points.

SCOUTING THE SAINTSSt. Lawrence is one of the hottest teams in the country right now, having defeated No. 3 Quinnipiac, 3-2, and Princeton, 7-1, on the road last weekend. The Saints have wins in three of their last four outings, including another victory over a top-5 team with a 2-1 triumph at home over Union on Jan. 31. Few players in the country are as talented as senior Greg Carey, who ranks first in ECAC Hockey and third in the nation in scoring with 46 points. His 32 assists are second nationally and are a dozen more than any other player in the league to this point. His younger brother Matt, a freshman on the team, is second in scoring among Saints players with 32 points, while boasting a St. Lawrence-best 16 goals. Matt Weninger came up big at Quinnipiac last weekend, making 31 saves in the upset, including 16 in the final period to hold off the potent Bobcats’ offense.

ALL-TIME AGAINST SLUFriday night will mark the 92nd all-time meeting between the two programs and the 44th in Canton. The Saints opened up Appleton Arena on Jan. 20, 1951 against Dartmouth with the visiting team taking the 5-3 win. More than 64 years later, the building remains the home of the Saints and continues to play host to the Big Green each season. In the earlier match-up between the two in Hanover in November, St. Lawrence came out on top, 8-5, in a wild offensive affair at Thompson. The Carey brothers combined for seven points on four goals and three assists in the tilt, which actually saw Dartmouth, outshoot the visitors, 32-29.

SCOUTING THE GOLDEN KNIGHTSA team picked to finish last in both the preseason media and coaches poll, Clarkson has been one of the biggest surprises in all of college hockey this season. Ranked 17th by USCHO and 15th by USA Hockey, the Golden Knights are currently tied with Cornell for fourth in the league standings with 20 points. The 17 wins are the third-most by an ECAC Hockey program at this point, trailing only Quinnipiac (20) and Union (19). A balanced scoring attack led by Allan McPherson and Ben Sexton has helped the team put points on the board, despite early-season question marks about scoring. The two seniors are tied for the team lead with 23 points apiece, while McPherson’s 11 goals and Sexton’s 17 assists are tops in those respective statistical categories. Goalies Greg Lewis (8-5-0, 2.63 GAA, .893 S%) and Steve Perry (8-5-2, 2.16 GAA, .915 S%) have nearly identical numbers and have shared time in net all season.

ALL-TIME AGAINST CLARKSONThe 3-2 win by the Golden Knights in Hanover back in early November marked the 100th all-time meeting between the two long-time ECAC Hockey rivals. In that Nov. 8 tilt, Clarkson took a 2-0 lead in the first before second-period goals from Grant Opperman and Eric Neiley tied things just 1:11 apart midway through. However, the visitors’ Ben Sexton wasted little time in netting the game winner just under two minutes later.

AWESOME AT APPLETONDartmouth has not lost on the road at St. Lawrence since Feb. 21, 2009. Since then, the Big Green are 6-0-0 at Appleton, including recording the first-ever sweep by a road team in the building’s history during the 2012 first-round playoff series. In those six games, Dartmouth has outscored the Saints by a combined 25-10 figure.

TRIPPED UP AT CHEELIf the Big Green enjoy success at Appleton, they have struggled as of late at Clarkson’s Cheel Arena. In each of the last two seasons, the Golden Knights have shutout the team from the Upper Valley twice by scores of 4-0. Dartmouth’s last win in Potsdam was Nov. 12, 2010, a 7-1 victory. The last player to score wearing the Green and White was current senior Taylor Boldt, netting his first career marker at 15:54 of the third period to build the lead to seven.

LAST TIME HELD WITHOUTDartmouth was held without a goal for the first time this season when Harvard walked away from last Friday’s contest with a 3-0 win. The last team to shutout the Big Green was Clarkson on Feb. 22, 2013, a span of 30 games in between.

DELAYEDThough it affected both teams, a pregame Zamboni malfunction at Harvard’s Bright-Landry Hockey Center seemed to be a more costly detriment to the Green last weekend. The nearly two-hour delay came after warm-ups and interrupted the teams’ pregame routines. It was evident after a shortened second warm-up that the game would be affected as Dartmouth had just four first-period shots and struggled to find its legs in the game.

LOCAL & FAMILY CONNECTIONSSenior Nick Lovejoy has played alongside his cousin on his mother’s side Kyle Nickerson all season. Lovejoy will now square off against second-cousin on his father’s side Gavin Bayreuther, the current ECAC Hockey Rookie of the Week, for just the second time in his collegiate career. Bayreuther is also a Canaan, N.H., native, but not the only Granite State native on the Saints’ roster as Hanover’s Patrick Doherty is in his third campaign with the team.

ON THE ROAD AGAINDartmouth is back out on the road for the second straight weekend and for the third time in the last four. It will finish the season on the road at Cornell and Colgate on Feb. 28 and Mar. 1 and will likely be travelling to its first-round opponent when ECAC Hockey Championship play begins Mar. 7. Currently, the Big Green are 2-6-1 in true road games.

IVY UPDATECornell is in the driver’s seat to claim the 2013-14 Ivy League title with a 6-0-1 mark and 13 points. Dartmouth is tied for third with Harvard as each have seven points with matching 3-3-1 records, but just one point back of Brown’s eight points (4-3-0).

BACKSTOPPINGSophomore James Kruger made his second straight start in goal against Harvard after picking up his first career win against Princeton on Feb. 1. Kruger actually made his debut last season at Cheel, coming into the Feb. 22 game and playing 33:11 in relief.

SOLID PK NEEDEDThe Green and White will need a solid effort out of its penalty killers on Friday night as St. Lawrence boasts far-and-away the nation’s top power-play unit at 30.3% (40-132). No other team is clicking at more than 25 percent this season as nearly 41 percent of the Saints’ goal total this season has come with the man-advantage.

SPORTSMANSHIP!Junior Charlie Mosey has played in 21 of the team’s 23 games this season, recording five goals and nine points to rank sixth on the Green in scoring. The one stat he has failed to record any figure this season is in the PIM category. Mosey is one of just two active players who have failed to be whistled for a penalty this season along with Brett Patterson. The latter, however, has missed the last month due to injury, while Mosey continues to play penalty-free hockey on a nightly basis.

WHAT’S AHEAD?Dartmouth will return home for its final two games of the regular season at Thompson Arena next weekend against Brown and Yale. The Bears come to Hanover on Friday night, while the defending NCAA Champions are in town for Saturday night in a game that will also serve as the Big Green’s Senior Night.